Judgement and validation with Gabby Bernstein

Do you find yourself endlessly scrolling through your social media 24/7? If so, you’re one of many!

New job? Tweeted about it. New house? Took a picture on Facebook. Lost weight? Posted your pictures on Instagram for #TransformationTuesday.

As we launch our own Reclaim your Day Off campaign for 2018, it’s interesting how more and more influential figures are raising awareness about the double-edged sword that is social media.

Spiritual teacher and best-selling author Gabby Berstein argues that all the sharing is making our lives available for everyone to see and therefore judge.

Social media is just one way that makes judging so common in society, and this is where Gabby’s new book Judgement Detox, comes so timely into our lives.

In the book, Gabby explores how, judgment – both being judged and judging others – is the core of much of our discomfort and many of our life blocks.

Judgement is a reliable crutch when we feel hurt, insecure, or vulnerable, but when we judge, our energy weakens and our thoughts darken:

“Judgment has become a pervasive issue. We always judged but today it’s amplified due to social media and our daily newsfeed. Every moment we spend online reinforces judgmental thoughts and patterns. It’s an epidemic.”

In her new book, Gabby offers an interactive six-step process for dealing with and removing judgment from our lives.

Calling on spiritual principles from the text A Course in Miracles, Kundalini yoga, meditation, EFT and metaphysical teachings, including the concept of “clearing the wound”. Among her six-step process, the first real action to be taken is very simple: only follow people who make you feel good:

“This is the most important thing we can do. Go through the list of people you follow and ask yourself, “how do they make me feel?”

If there’s any tinge of resentment, comparison or judgment, unfollow the person. Keep your feed filled with positive uplifting content that makes you feel good. Feeling good must be your priority.”

Gabby is not exempt from these feelings: in one of her videos, she shares how she faced negative comments on her social media feed.

“While my immediate response was to forgive and delete, in time my ego got the best of me. I found myself stuck in the discomfort of negativity and personal attacks from people I’d never met. I felt sad, hurt, and worst of all, defensive. But rather than lace up my boxing gloves, I chose to find the lesson from the Internet backlash.”

We posed three quick questions to Gabby to help you wijudgmentent:

A lot of judgement comes in the form of online trolling or hurtful comments: what is the first step to take when experiencing this kind of harsh judgement?

My practice is to forgive and delete. I forgive because I can easily accept that only an unhappy person would treat someone unkindly online. When I come from this place of compassion it’s easy to release someone for their negativity.

Then I delete! As quickly as possible I remove the negativity from my feed. I don’t have time for it and I won’t hold space for it. I want to create a positive community online and there’s no room for negativity.

Would you say judgement and validation are linked? If so, how?

At times we may use judgment to feel validated in our beliefs or actions. This is a sign that you’re trying to justify something. Judgment keeps us stuck in defensive patterns and can make us validate our own negativity.

Finally, what do you think judging others really say about ourselves?

Whenever we are judging others we are projecting out a disowned part of our own shadow. We judge to avoid feeling our own inadequacy and inner wounds.